


Unsolitary Confinement

by Riona



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: ...kind of, Bonding, Clarke/Lexa references, Gen, Grief, Imprisonment, brief fucked-up mention of Murphy fantasising about Clarke
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-01
Updated: 2018-11-01
Packaged: 2019-08-14 04:14:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,815
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16485725
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Riona/pseuds/Riona
Summary: Set after 'Thirteen'. Clarke's in an emotional state, and she's locked in a room with Murphy. Time for them to bond, or possibly just time for them to piss each other off.





	Unsolitary Confinement

**Author's Note:**

> At the start of 'Stealing Fire' we're told that Murphy and Clarke have been locked in the room where Lexa died for twenty-four hours, and I'm _really_ curious about what conversations they've been having. I also sort of love how fucked up it is that 'Stealing Fire' opens with Murphy lying on the bloodied bed.
> 
> (Be aware that, although this isn't technically a Murphy/Clarke fic, there are a couple of potential hints of one-sided attraction from Murphy.)

Clarke’s still kneeling by the side of the bed, trembling, fists clenched in the blood-soaked furs. It seems like a bad time to make conversation, but there aren’t that many options here.

“So what exactly was your relationship with the commander?” Murphy asks. “’Cause I’m getting a feeling I missed some developments.”

“Leave me alone, Murphy,” Clarke snaps back at him.

“I’d love to,” Murphy says. “I would honestly love to. You just show me how to leave and I promise I’m out of here.”

Clarke stands and turns to face him. “There’s a window.”

Another time he’s been locked in a room is a constant shadow over his already-dark thoughts. Those three months in the bunker, the barrel of a gun pressing under his chin. “Maybe later.”

He was alone in the bunker. Clarke is here. She’s not great company right now, maybe, but she’s not nothing.

“You were in solitary on the Ark, right?” he asks. “Must’ve sucked.”

“Maybe you’re not getting this,” Clarke says, vicious, “but I’m not exactly in the mood to talk.”

“Might as well. It’s not like we have anything else to do. Or are you so busy with your important misery that you can’t talk to me?”

“If you have the energy to ask questions, you can try to open the door.”

“Believe me,” Murphy says, “I am an expert on being locked up. I have been locked up in _so_ many different places. Jaha locked me up. Grounders captured me. Your friends pinned me down in the dropship. Spent three months alone in a bunker. Grounders captured me, _again_. Now I’m here. We’re not getting through that door.”

“Just don’t—” Clarke pauses. “Three months?”

“Oh, am I worth talking to now?”

“ _That’s_ where you’ve been? How?”

“Jaha’s a piece of shit, that’s how,” Murphy says. “Thought he could just store me in the fridge until he needed me. Not that he _told_ me he knew I was there.” He shrugs. “Almost blew my own head off so I wouldn’t have to starve.”

Clarke’s staring at him, horrified now. “Murphy...”

Is he getting some sympathy at last? He won’t lie; it feels good. “You want me to list all the times I’ve been beaten up as well?”

Honestly, even not knowing when or if they’ll be let out of here, he’s not sure they have the time for that list.

“It was hard,” Clarke says. “Solitary. But at least my mom could visit. I’m sorry that happened to you.”

“Wasn’t your fault,” Murphy says. “Yet. I’m just waiting for the time _you_ trap me somewhere for no reason. Everyone else has.”

Clarke pauses. “No reason? You murdered two people.”

She might have a point there. Like hell he’s going to admit it.

“Two people,” Murphy agrees. “From everything I’ve heard, that’s nothing compared to you.”

Clarke stares at him for a moment, wounded and angry, and he could’ve just kept his mouth shut and basked in the fact that someone actually felt _bad_ for him for once.

“You weren’t there,” she says, her voice shaking. “You don’t know the choice I had to make, you don’t know—”

“Why don’t you tell me?” he asks. “We’ve got time.”

“Get floated, Murphy.”

He’s already fucked up this conversation; might as well keep digging. “And then there’s Finn—”

“Don’t you _dare_ talk about Finn.”

“Eighteen people, and everyone in the camp was just falling over themselves to make sure he didn’t face any consequences,” Murphy says. “I didn’t do anything close, and I’m still the one everyone hates. You remember Raven wanted to sell me out in Finn’s place?”

“People don’t just hate you because of the murders, Murphy.” She’s breathing hard, fists clenched, blades in the way she’s looking at him. There’s a weird draw to it; his instincts are telling him to run away, but another part of him can’t stop looking. “They hate you because you’re a dick. I don’t need this when Lexa just—”

She chokes on the words.

He watches her for a moment. “You forgot.”

“I didn’t _forget_. I won’t ever forget this. I—” She’s silent for a moment. He can see that she’s shaking; he doesn’t know if it’s anger or what. “I loved her, if that’s something you can even understand.”

“See?” Murphy asks. “Answering my question at last. Was that so hard?”

Clarke closes her eyes, takes a couple of deep breaths.

“I’ve done some awful things,” she says. “But I still don’t deserve to be in here with you.”

“I understand love, Clarke,” Murphy says. “And I’m not saying you forgot just to piss you off. It’s a good thing. Something fucked-up happened, and you had a chance to think about something else for a moment.”

Clarke laughs. It’s the most bitter laugh Murphy’s ever heard, and he knows something about bitterness. “You’re saying you were _nobly_ being an asshole to distract me?”

“Nah,” Murphy says. “I was just being an asshole, and it distracted you. I still think I should get some credit.”

“Okay,” Clarke says. “Let’s recap the things you made me think about instead. One: Mount Weather. Two: Finn. Great job making me feel better.”

“Any time,” Murphy says.

Clarke’s next laugh is just exhausted and humourless. Which is an improvement, he guesses.

-

Okay. Having taken inventory, this room is one of the nicer places he’s been trapped in, although that only makes so much of a difference; the _nicest_ place he’s ever been locked up was the bunker, and you could not fucking pay him to go back there. Here’s what he has here.

A window. Great view, because they’re really fucking high up, and if they try to escape that way they will absolutely fall and die. Makes the great view slightly harder to appreciate.

Assorted weird ornaments, which are pretty useless. Chairs.

A mostly-full jug of water, thank fuck. Mugs in the cupboards, along with a few strips of dried meat; maybe the commander liked to snack. Nothing more substantial than that. Hopefully someone remembers they’re here at some point and has at least a minor interest in keeping them alive. He’s not keeping his hopes up; the only person who _definitely_ knows they’re here is the guy who tortured him and tried to shoot Clarke.

Some rough-pressed sheets of paper. A couple of sticks of charcoal. Pen, ink. He’d never seen pens without ink included before he came down from space.

Approximately a billion candles, which should be useful when the sun goes down. They can’t find anything to light them with, but some of them were already lit when they were shut in here, so they just have to make sure at least a few are burning at all times.

Clarke, obviously.

A bed. Pretty big. Pretty comfortable. Pretty hard to lie on without thinking about watching a robot spider being cut out of a dead girl’s neck.

“What the hell are you doing?”

Uh-oh.

“Having a rest,” he says. “The more active we are, the faster we run out of water.”

“Lexa—” She drops her voice, as if anyone’s here to listen. “Lexa _died_ there, you can’t just—”

“Believe me,” Murphy says, “a bed that’s _not_ covered in weird black blood sounds great, but it looks like this is what we’re getting.”

He pats the furs next to him, careful not to touch the patches where the blood is actually drying. She looks at him like he’s a cockroach.

“I could shift over,” he offers. “Probably room for neither of us to lie on the blood.”

“Not without being way closer to you than I can stomach right now,” Clarke says.

Murphy shrugs, settles in more comfortably. “Suit yourself.”

“I’m not in the mood to be hit on,” Clarke says. “I have never been less in the mood to be hit on.”

“I’m not hitting on you,” Murphy says. “I’m just saying there’s space to lie down.”

The thought’s in his head now, though. He’s pretty fucked up; he’d be the first to admit it. He’s probably not fucked up enough to screw _Clarke Griffin_ , of all people, when she’s an emotional wreck, on a bed soaked in her girlfriend’s blood.

But it’s a pretty vivid image, and it’s hard to shake. Going to be fighting that off when he’s reunited with Emori, if that ever happens. Thanks, Clarke.

He closes his eyes, tries to think about something else, and, great, his mind is back in the bunker again. That’s an improvement.

“How did you deal in solitary?” he asks, not opening his eyes. At least in the bunker he had that handful of end-of-the-world vids he could watch over and over again. Not the most cheerful viewing, and they drove him crazy in the end, but they were some kind of entertainment.

“They let me have chalk,” she says, after a moment. “I could draw. It helped.”

Another moment passes. There are some vague rustling sounds. Nothing too worrying, so Murphy stays where he is, hands resting on his stomach, eyes still closed. It’s definitely comfortable, if you forget about the person who was choking on her last moments of life here a few hours ago. And, you know, the fact that he’s been beaten to shit.

He doesn’t sleep, exactly, but he dozes. Eventually becomes aware that there’s some kind of soft scratching going on in the room.

He opens his eyes.

Clarke’s pulled a stool over to sit by the side of the bed, she’s sketching something with charcoal. Glances up at Murphy.

“You’re drawing _me?_ ” he asks.

“I’m not seeing any better subjects around,” she says. But there’s no real bite to it.

“Can I see?”

“You can stay still.”

Not like he has anything else to do. He closes his eyes again.

“Is it helping?” he asks.

“Not yet,” she says. “I don’t know. It’s better than doing nothing.”

It’s relaxing, somehow, listening to the scratch of the charcoal. He tries to focus on that. There’s nothing good inside his head right now.

-

She taps his shoulder eventually, hands him the paper. He sits up on the murder-bed to study it.

It’s clear in a second where Clarke’s focus has been. Murphy himself is sketched in quick, light lines, like he’s only half-there, like a ghost. The bed itself is drawn in more detail. The blood on the bed stands out against everything else, it leaps off the page, drawn heavy and dark. Lexa feels more present in the drawing than he does.

He wants to ask questions. He wants to know more about what Lexa was to her, how that whole thing happened, what he missed while he was screaming at a television in a bunker he thought he’d die in. He wants to drag Clarke into memories that will hurt her.

“Is my face really that fucked up?” he asks instead.

Clarke laughs. “It’s worse.”


End file.
